So we reached the chariot, near to which stood Jabez, he who had saved us.

“Prince,” he whispered, glancing at the crowd who lingered not far away, silent and glowering, “I pray you leave this land swiftly for here your life is not safe.  I know it was by chance, but you have defiled the sanctuary and seen that upon which eyes may not look save those of the highest priests, an offence no Israelite can forgive.”

“And you, or your people, Jabez, would have defiled this sanctuary of my life, spilling my heart’s blood and not by chance.  Surely you are a strange folk who seek to make an enemy of one who has tried to be your friend.”

“I do not seek it,” exclaimed Jabez.  “I would that we might have Pharaoh’s mouth and ear who soon will himself be Pharaoh upon our side.  O Prince of Egypt, be not wroth with all the children of Israel because their wrongs have made some few of them stubborn and hard-hearted.  Begone now, and of your goodness remember my words.”

“I will remember,” said Seti, signing to the charioteer to drive on.

Yet still the Prince lingered in the town, saying that he feared nothing and would learn all he could of this people and their ways that he might report the better of them to Pharaoh.  For my part I believed that there was one face which he wished to see again before he left, but of this I thought it wise to say nothing.

At length about midday we did depart, and drove eastwards on the track of Amenmeses and our company.  All the afternoon we drove thus, preceded by the two soldiers disguised as runners and followed, as a distant cloud of dust told me, by the captain and his chariots, whom I had secretly commanded to keep us in sight.

Towards evening we came to the pass in the story hills which bounded the land of Goshen.  Here Seti descended from the chariot, and we climbed, accompanied by the two soldiers whom I signed to follow us, to the crest of one of these hills that was strewn with huge boulders and lined with ridges of sandstone, between which gullies had been cut by the winds of thousands of years.

Leaning against one of these ridges we looked back upon a wondrous sight.  Far away across the fertile plain appeared the town that we had left, and behind it the sun sank.  It would seem as though some storm had broken there, although the firmament above us was clear and blue.  At least in front of the town two huge pillars of cloud stretched from earth to heaven like the columns of some mighty gateway.  One of these pillars was as though it were made of black marble, and the other like to molten gold.  Between them ran a road of light ending in a glory, and in the midst of the glory the round ball of Ra, the Sun, burned like the eye of God.  The spectacle was as awesome as it was splendid.

“Have you ever seen such a sky in Egypt, Prince?” I asked.

“Never,” he answered, and although he spoke low, in that great stillness his voice sounded loud to me.